Project 1: The Ice Breaker (Part 1 - Coaching)

Wow, congratulations for getting this far!

"What? But I haven't done anything yet?!"  I hear you ask.

Yes you have. You are here, ready to give your first speech. It is a big step - perhaps even the biggest one you will take on your Toastmasters journey. If you've really committed yourself then you've probably also advised your VPE of the date you will give your speech. Again, well done.

All you have to do for this speech is get up and speak. That's it. Give a speech. Talk about yourself. Then sit down and congratulate yourself while basking in the admiration of your new found club members.

"What?" I hear you say again. "But..but..I'm not a good speaker. But..I don't know what to talk about..but it's going to take too long to prepare this speech and..."

Okay, enough already. Just do it. No procrastination. Just do it and get it done. Obviously read the project in your CC manual and follow what it says. Although, in a nutshell, it's just this:

Stand up and give a speech.
Talk about yourself.
You can use notes if you need to.

As far as topics go, don't try and cram your entire life's history into a (roughly) 5 minute speech. It just won't fit and it will probably be boring.

Simply take ONE key aspect of your life/life experience/favourite thing and tell a story about it, following this structure:

Intro (Tell them what you're going to talk about) - about 1 minute
First part of story - about 1 minute
Second part of story - about 1 minute
Third part of story - about 1 minute
Conclusion (summarise what you just said) - about 1 minute

For example, if you like fishing, your speech structure may be like this:

Intro (this speech will be about my fishing adventure)
First part of story (I went fishing with some mates and boasted that I could catch a big fish)
Second part of story (I actually did catch a huge fish but the fishing line broke)
Third part of story (my mates now go around telling the joke of the supposedly big fish I caught that 'got away')
Conclusion (I had a fun fishing adventure but didn't manage to catch dinner!)

This is of course not the only way you can give a speech but the advantage of doing it this way is that the audience gets a good insight into your personality and a favourite interest/incident in your life.

Here's a video that you can groove to that should get you in the right mindset for preparing your Ice Breaker:

All the best! And don't forget to check out part 2 of the Ice Breaker blog, where I deconstruct my own Ice Breaker speech.